The New Orleans Connection
The New Orleans connection by wikilipwak Four people from New Orleans are responsible for us having the Director’s Cut and the Final Cut. Sterling Smith John Alan Simon Ron Weinberg Micheline Charest Sterling Smith was a film buff who had a tv show in New Orleans (on WGNO) called Critic’s Choice. (You can see his 1978 interview with Christopher Lee and Robin Hardy talking about the film here: pt 1, pt 2.This is the second of two interviews he did with Christopher Lee. The first one may not have been about TWM. I haven’t found that yet.) John Alan Simon was a recent Harvard grad who was working at the local paper, The Times-Picayune, in 1976. In August of that year, he met Sterling through a story he wrote about Sterling being bitten by a rat at the Orpheum movie theater downtown. They bonded over their love of films and formed the Abraxas Film Corp that month to distribute obscure films that they loved. They found out about the Wicker Man and got a print sent out to them from Warner Brothers on 9/7/76. Once they saw it (at the Robert E Lee theater in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans) they wanted to distribute it. Robin Hardy found out about this and they began the hunt for the Director’s Cut. They found the print Corman had, restored most of it but not all (due to financial reasons and some editorial judgements from Robin and perhaps others) and that became the Final Cut. After Abraxas won back the rights to the film from Summerisle Films (see below), John had a copy dubbed off and made a deal to distribute it on home VHS. That was the Director’s Cut. Ron and Micheline had joined Abraxas in 1976 to help get funding for it to restore it to what became known as the Final Cut. A few years in, they had split off from Abraxas to form Summerisle Films. That is why you see their names on the opening credits as they owned the rights then. (Larry Gordon, the first name on the credits, owned Beachfront Properties, a tax shelter set up to profit from whatever money the film might make after Warner Brothers gave up on it also owned a major stake in the film. He lived on Long Island, NY.) Ron, also from Long Island originally, went to Tulane University at roughly the time I went there (and I lived across the Long Island Sound from him) but I never knew him (each class was over 1000). He was interested in film and helped with the campus film society which showed films many nights a week, either for free or a dollar. (Very few films cost more than that.) It is possible that the film could have played when I was there when Warner Brothers still had the rights. I am researching that. I could swear I saw the film before seeing it (the director’s cut) on VHS with Morris friends in 1982 or so. I may have seen it on NY tv... Ron graduated two years before me but was still in New Orleans in 1976 and helped run a woman’s film festival there. That’s where he met Micheline. She was French Canadian. The two came onboard Abraxas along with another Tulane grad, Buddy Brimberg. Buddy now runs the very locally-culturally significant Jazz and Heritage Festival poster company. (I am trying to reach him…) Ron and Micheline, after they split off from Abraxas as Summerisle Films, showed the theatrical version of the film driving it around the country in their car. Abraxas (John Alan Simon and Stirling Smith) won the rights back in June of 1979 and premiered the Final Cut version in NYC that summer. (As far as I know. I could be wrong about what version Summerisle Films showed.) That brings us to today, Stirling died in 1979 or 1980 (I also see a date of 1986...). John Alan Simon is alive and well. I’ve been in touch with him and he’s been very forthcoming. We haven’t talked in awhile. I left it with him saying he was busy and that he would get back in touch. That was 2018… Ron got involved in a multimillion dollar scandal in Canada and only last year got out on bail. I’ve written to one of his lawyers but not heard back. Micheline died in 2004. Buddy is still around but hard to get in touch with. Craig Miller, a member of a Wicker Man Facebook group, also worked with Summerisle Films in Los Angeles. He is responsible for the poster that has the crowd lined up on the cliff with the antler dancers being most prominent amongst other things. There is much more to this story and lots of double-checking needs to be done to be sure I have the facts right. I just thought I’d put a spotlight on these people as they played such an important part in the film’s success. I am hoping that If anyone has any leads or additional info they can share about any of this, they let me know. Thanks. Brown devotes a whole chapter to this. (Chapter 17 in the paperback, Chapter 15 in the e-book.) See the Timeline for more New Orleans events and other events in the area. - 11/19/77 Appearance by Christopher Lee and Stirling Smith at the Sena Mall Theater in Metairie. - From Stuart Byron's Something Wicker This Way Comes article on the film, re: Larry Gordon: “In the past few years of trying to produce and distribute films, Smith has had ample opportunity to meet and deal with many of the meat-grinders and flesh-peddlers who make up the business end of filmdom, but he confesses that he has never met anyone quite like Larry Gordon. I honestly think he hates films, says Smith. The first thing Gordon says to me is, “You really want to buy this dog?” Fortunately this gave Smith the perfect opening to begin negotiations from a favored position. Actually nursing national ambitions for what he considered a class item, Smith could pretend to agree with Garden on the downbeat possibilities for The Wicker Man. “I know it's a dog, Larry," he replied "But look- we might be able to make some money on it. Drive-Ins in the South. you know.”” - John Alan Simon info from imdb: "Prior to his entry in the film industry, Simon was a successful journalist and film critic, both as staff writer for the New Orleans Times Picayune and as editor-in-chief of New Orleans magazine…. During this period, Simon also taught courses in film and writing at Tulane University, Loyola University…" - LA Times article about Micheline. "Their first venture after forming Cinar was marketing an obscure horror film, “The Wicker Man,” literally from the trunk of their car as they drove across the country to show it to local exhibitors. The movie was screened in about 30 small art houses, and made the couple about $250,000 over two years." - 7/3/78 Abraxas, based in Metairie, is Stirling Smith, president, Ronald Weinberg and Robert Manard, attorney. Smith was previously president of Cinema Systems, Inc. - 7/28/75 Smith host of the Hollywood Showcase tv show, named executive director of the New Orleans International Film Festival, 7/27 - 8/4/75.